From:	"John M. Aldrich" <fighteer AT cs DOT com>
Newsgroups:	comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject:	Re: Is RHIDE a good environment to use?
Date:	Wed, 21 Jan 1998 19:41:19 -0500
Organization:	Two pounds of chaos and a pinch of salt.
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Message-ID:	<34C695AF.64E3@cs.com>
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To:	djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway:	from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

Alan Wilson wrote:
> 
> I have been following the posts of this group on and off for about a year
> now.  I know that there has been some debate as to which environment users
> of djgpp should use: RHIDE or EMACS?
> 
> Which do you prefer?  and why?
> 
> Is RHIDE virtually bug free now?

There are still bug reports floating around about RHIDE 1.4, but Robert
and SET are hard at work on solving them.  I would say from what I have
read on the list that RHIDE is sufficiently stable to use as a
development platform.

However, I prefer Emacs due to its extreme flexibility.  I can customize
nearly any aspect of its behavior, even to the point of coding
additional functionality directly into the editor.  However, I barely
ever need to do this as just about every feature one could possibly
imagine is already built into Emacs.  Many people find Emacs to have a
steep learning curve, because its operation won't be immediately
intutitve for those who are used to DOS-based editors.  However, even
when I first started using it, I found that there was plenty of online
help available, and that most of the major features were simple to learn
once I figured out how to access them.  After a few days of
unfamiliarity and stumbling over features, you'll probably never want to
use an "inferior" editor again.  :-)

Some of the features I use most commonly in Emacs:
 - Syntax highlighting (customizable, of course).
 - Automatic indentation, customizable to my specific coding style (this
is incredibly useful), plus the ability to take entire blocks of code
and reindent them automatically.
 - Unlimited buffers, easy navigation between buffers, ability to shell
to the current directory of the active buffer.
 - Allows browsing of directory trees in a buffer.
 - Shows compilation results in a window, highlighting errors and
warnings and allowing me to jump to the location of a message with a
mouse click.
 - The ability to remap any key to any function, and to have specific
key bindings for each mode.
 - A special mode for editing Makefiles (another godsend).

Those are most of the features I use regularly, though there are many
more I use infrequently that are equally useful.  Plus, Emacs is a
standard among Unix programmers, and I've found that using it puts me
into something of an elite category.  :-)

-- 
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|      John M. Aldrich       |"Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream |
|       aka Fighteer I       |up a god superior to themselves. Most |
|   mailto:fighteer AT cs DOT com   |gods have the manners and morals of a |
| http://www.cs.com/fighteer |spoiled child."    - Lazarus Long     |
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